00:00Good evening and welcome to the Kent Politics Show.
00:29Live here on KMTV, the show that gets Kent's politicians talking.
00:34I'm Oliver, leader of the Saxons, and today marks an extraordinary day in politics.
00:39Not just here in Kent, but across the UK,
00:42as parliamentarians put aside their party ties to vote in favour of one of the most difficult pieces of legislation
00:48they may ever have to make their voices heard on.
00:51The Assisted Dying Bill is not the only headline of the week though,
00:55with the Prime Minister changing tact on immigration,
00:58and water quality warnings in the South Coast raising fresh concerns.
01:02Well, to make sense of it all, I'm joined by folks who are in the High District Council,
01:05leader Jim Martin, and hopefully a little later in the programme,
01:08Labour Elder Parish Councillor Lola Ayoze.
01:11But first, the bill that has divided MPs and caused so much public debate
01:16over the rights of those who are terminally ill to end their own lives has passed.
01:20With 330 voting for the bill and 275 voting against,
01:25our reporter Bartholomew Hall has been speaking to just a few of Kent's MPs
01:30who voted on the legislation today.
01:33As a country, we should be ashamed that we haven't passed a law before now.
01:39Why? I believe it's a lack of moral fibre.
01:44Mike Moroney has been campaigning for Assisted Dying for years,
01:48following the painful loss of his sister, Mike says he's shocked the UK
01:52doesn't allow people the choice to end their lives early when terminally ill.
01:56However, the fight grew even larger when his wife Pauline was taken into palliative care
02:02as she entered a losing battle with lymphoma.
02:05I just want to die, she said, several times.
02:08And, you know...
02:15..I have some kind of guilt,
02:19because, really, I would have loved to have helped her to die.
02:24And that's why I'm so much in favour of a law in this country
02:29which allows people to be medically assisted.
02:34Today, MPs voted for the first time in favour of making Assisted Dying legal.
02:39It's now set to face many more months of debate and scrutiny on the path to becoming law.
02:45In its current form, the bill sets out a number of requirements
02:48which must be met before someone can end their life early.
02:51That includes for them to be ill enough where they're expected to die within the next six months,
02:56for them to have the mental capacity in order to make the decision,
02:59so free from coercion or pressure,
03:01and for two independent doctors plus a High Court judge to sign off on the final decision.
03:07Mike's MP, Rosie Duffield, announced the night before the debates
03:10that, after careful consideration, she would not be supporting the bill.
03:14Very disappointed. I won't want to say any more.
03:18I'm sorry, Rosie, if you hear this.
03:20I believe this is a lack of moral fibre.
03:23You're not thinking and putting yourself through the thought process for other people
03:29other than your own particular views.
03:32Others, including Sittingbourne and Sheppey representative Kevin McKenna, have been in full support.
03:37I've worked with really compassionate and very skilled, well-trained clinicians
03:41who've been taught to spot coercion. It's fundamental to our practice.
03:45Others have been clear about their concerns.
03:48At the moment, there's a lack of experience in hospitals.
03:53The hospices are under-resourced.
03:56Both are capable of providing excellent services.
04:00Going forward, this could be something that we should consider,
04:03and maybe it came too soon into this Parliament as well,
04:09so maybe more discussion, more debates around this.
04:12I'm not convinced in the current legislation it's strong enough to support this bill.
04:19So, whilst the debate is far from over, for campaigners like Mike,
04:24today's vote is a welcome step towards more choice when families are faced with the unimaginable.
04:29Bartholomew Hall for KMTV.
04:32Well, as you heard there, a momentous day in British politics,
04:36and Lola and Jim join me here now.
04:39And Jim, I want to go to you first, because what did you make of the outcome today?
04:44Did Parliament make the right decision, or was there not really a right or wrong in this case?
04:55Jim, did you hear me there?
04:58I'm sorry, are you talking to me, Olly? Sorry, I missed that, mate.
05:02Yeah, the truth be told is that this is such a personal decision to make
05:09that it's very, very difficult for anyone who's not in that position
05:13to accurately give an answer to that question.
05:19I've had elderly relatives, my mother, father-in-law, brother-in-law,
05:24a very, very, very difficult position to be in, which I don't envy for anyone.
05:32What I would say, Olly, is that anyone who watched the debate today
05:38would have seen the House of Commons at its very best.
05:42No political division, no point scoring, no one-upmanship,
05:47just a group of very concerned, well-informed people giving their views passionately.
05:56And I think we should have a lot more of that.
06:00In answer to your question, I've got to stay on the fence.
06:05It's a personal decision, and I would hate to trample on anybody's thoughts.
06:11One way or the other on this.
06:13Obviously, it's so complicated, so many arguments for and against.
06:17And it is something that's had a wide impact in Kent.
06:21There's an average of 75% of people here, according to opinion polling,
06:25that support Assisted Dying.
06:27But obviously, Kent's MPs have been quite divided along this.
06:31It's not along party lines only.
06:34Lola, I want to ask you, do you think this is Parliament at its best today?
06:39Why do you think it's proven so divisive amongst our elected representatives,
06:43not even along traditional party lines in some ways?
06:47To be quite honest with you, it's not a win-win situation
06:51for the members of Parliament and even for the constituents themselves.
06:56Just like what everybody's been saying, it's a personal choice.
07:03And I'm speaking for me, I'm speaking as Lola Uyewuse.
07:07It's not something that I'm for.
07:10I'm totally against it, because number one, I'm a woman of faith.
07:13And number two, even as my constituent, I know the way that my MP voted.
07:18Well, I can't condemn the way he voted,
07:20because we have to look at things from both angles.
07:25The angles of people seeing their relatives so much in pain,
07:30and they want to go.
07:31And the angle of the other side, where we're thinking
07:34those who are not able to make that decision by themselves,
07:37those who have dementia, those who are thinking this act is not an act of God.
07:44This is, we could say, like a suicide bill.
07:47So we need to tread carefully and not to take side.
07:51And I'm very happy the way the government have actually gone with this,
07:56not actually making it mandatory for them to vote
08:00according to the way they think they should be voting.
08:03It's a personal choice, a personal decision.
08:05But what I'm not actually 100% sure about is,
08:09for all those MPs that voted, have they listened to their constituents?
08:14That is the main thing for me.
08:16Because obviously the majority in Kent are supportive.
08:19I just wanted to ask you before we move back to Jim,
08:21do you think, although you personally disagree with the bill for faith reasons,
08:25do you think that there should be the option still,
08:28that there should be some sort of pathway for people
08:31that aren't of faith to have access to assisted dying?
08:34Or do you think there's not going to be enough safeguards,
08:36particularly because there are concerns around
08:38how it's going to impact marginalised groups?
08:40Obviously, we've seen massive healthcare disparities
08:43amongst BAME people during the pandemic, for example.
08:46You are so right.
08:47And it's one of the reasons why I'm also totally against it.
08:51Because the safeguarding for people like myself,
08:53people from ethnic minority groups, is not totally clear.
08:57And, you know, it's not there as far as we're concerned.
09:00And another thing is, we're not being given that right.
09:05Because I know a lot of people have said to me,
09:08doctors have gone round because there's not enough money being put into NHS,
09:12they just want to clear the bed, and they've literally just decided,
09:15right, OK, we're going to switch the machine off.
09:17That is an issue.
09:20And the majority of those who are caught in that, like you rightly said,
09:24are the people from the Black, Asian, minority ethnic group.
09:28Especially what happened to us during the COVID.
09:31This bill can also do the same again,
09:35work against us, just like COVID did.
09:38And that safeguarding needs to be...
09:40Olly, can I just back in there?
09:43There isn't a doctor in this country who will kill someone just to clear a bed.
09:48That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
09:51There is not a single doctor in this country
09:54who will kill a patient in order to clear the bed.
09:58That's just a completely ridiculous statement to make.
10:01I'm sorry, you could think that,
10:03but a lot of people have actually voiced that out to me.
10:06And I'm not just saying it because that's what I want to say.
10:09People have made it clear it's happened.
10:12They've made it clear that it's happened to their relatives,
10:15when they just basically thought, well, the doctor has made his decision,
10:19this person cannot make it, they're going to switch off the machine.
10:24You can say that.
10:26If that has happened, that doctor should be reported to the police,
10:30criminally prosecuted and spend the rest of their life in jail.
10:34And that's exactly what I've said to you.
10:37You should send them to the police.
10:39I want to return back to the assisted dying bill here.
10:42I just want to ask you, obviously, the Green MPs today
10:45just probably go for the break.
10:47They voted in favour of the bill, but there are definitely concerns
10:50we heard all throughout Parliament today about safeguarding.
10:54And obviously Lola has raised those concerns about safeguarding
10:57within the NHS.
10:59Do you think that there are strong enough safeguards in this bill
11:02if it were to go ahead at a third reading?
11:05The bill now goes to the committee stage,
11:09and that's where the individual members of Parliament
11:14will be able to amend the bill.
11:16And I think there is a general consensus
11:18that it needs strengthening.
11:20For example, there's no consultation with the next of kin on this.
11:26There's no consultation with the patient's GP.
11:30So there are elements of this bill that very, very much need strengthening.
11:36And that is what we all want to see.
11:41Very, very clearly.
11:43There is no co-option.
11:45Absolutely.
11:46Clearly it is controversial, and lots of debate on this
11:48that we'll hear over the next couple of months.
11:50See you after the break for more debate here about campus politics.
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